National college football analyst thinks LSU-Ole Miss will be decided by a particular position and an important trend
247Sports’ national college football analyst Cooper Petagna has a new show, “Coop’s Corner”. He is previewing Week 5 matchups and giving his personal analysis utilizing his 10+ years of college football personnel experience.One of the biggest games of the weekend is LSU at Ole Miss. The Magnolia Bowl is a Top 15 matchup between two […]
247Sports’ national college football analyst Cooper Petagna has a new show, “Coop’s Corner”. He is previewing Week 5 matchups and giving his personal analysis utilizing his 10+ years of college football personnel experience.
One of the biggest games of the weekend is LSU at Ole Miss. The Magnolia Bowl is a Top 15 matchup between two 4-0 teams who are fighting to stay up top of the SEC standings. This one will go a long way in not only the race to Atlanta but also CFP resumes.
Petagna gives his thoughts from top-to-bottom on both sides of the ball.
It all starts up front for LSU.
“Right tackle remains an issue for LSU. Struggled against Southeastern Louisiana, the left guard spot, they rotate. LSU has to find answers,” Petagna said. “Pre-snap penalties, it’s the same stuff. It gets old. Run a clean operation.”
At quarterback, LSU got quite the scare in the preseason when Garrett Nussmeier had some knee tendinitis flare up. Brian Kelly has hyped up his quarterback all week – saying he’s looked great and was healthy last week. But, he will need to be on top of his game on the road.
“The good news for LSU, Garrett Nussmeier looked the healthiest he’s looked all season,” Petagna said. “Took some deep shots. Run game a little bit better but it should be against an FCS opponent.”
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LSU’s running game has been touch-and-go thus far. It needs to pick it up.
Caden Durham has run for 213 yards on 52 carries this season. He’s only scored two touchdowns and is averaging 4.1 yards per carry. Still, a lot is expected from him and he’s yet to really bust open. And the LSU radio network echoed this.
“Some of the running issues aren’t just lack of execution, hat on a hat, Caden Durham hasn’t been seeing it the way we hoped he would, hasn’t been patient, he’s not seeing it like we hoped he would.”
Ole Miss is going to need to be ready up front defensively.
Pete Golding’s defense lost a ton from last year’s record-setting defense. Walter Nolen was drafted in the first-round, Princely Umanmielen was taken in the third-round, and Trey Amos was a second-round pick and starts for the Washington Commanders. But the defense also lost mainstays Jared Ivey, JJ Pegues, and All-SEC linebacker Pooh Paul.
Now, the unit has a ton of new faces and it all starts up front.
“Zxavian Harris. Big dog in the middle. Freak. Outside of that, there’s not a ton of beef. This is a team built on the outside in,” Petagna said. “Princewill (Umanmielen), Suntarine Perkins, Da’Shawn Womack. Ole Miss is light on the interior. And I like Will Echoles a lot, but you can run against Ole Miss.
“If I was LSU, I would be looking at Suntarine and Umanmielen, I’d make those guys defend the run. I know LSU is pass happy, they got all the weapons, all the cars you can possibly imagine in the garage, but sometimes you gotta take the old truck out, 250k miles, just let her rip,” Petagna said. “Get you from Nashville to New Orleans no problem. You know the dependability you have to get back to that consistency of a run game if you’re LSU.”
